


Gravity (pulling me towards you)

by SaturnChild



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Punisher (Comics), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Hurt Frank Castle, Kissing, M/M, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Mentions of neglect, POV Frank Castle, Slow Romance, Smitten Frank Castle, Soft Frank Castle, Soft matt murdock, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Matt Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28700880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaturnChild/pseuds/SaturnChild
Summary: Frank and Matt fight, a lot. It’s almost as if they don’t know how to interact otherwise, like they don’t know how not to. They fight over the stupid and the important shit. They talk bullshit and they talk business, but it always ends up in a fucking fight. Frank shouldn’t be surprised - kid doesn’t know how to do anything without grabbing it with both hands as if the world was ready to tear it away from him. He fights. Fights when he’s in his pretty smiles and bought-off-the-rack suits, fights when the Devil takes over with dangerous smirks and lightning-fast movements. He’s a creature of light as much as he is a creature of dark and so, they fight.But the strings holding them attached are dictated by gravity - all it takes is a nudge and a tilt, and everything changes.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Matt Murdock
Comments: 14
Kudos: 123





	Gravity (pulling me towards you)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write this for a while, but never found the time. Matty, in the Daredevil Netflix show, is really lonely and sad boy TM. I had this idea of both Frank and Matt slowly getting used to kindness and affection once more, and being fluffy and soft together <3  
> By the way, I'll be participating on next month's Frattweek, see you guys then!  
> I've been also wanting some opinions... I've been planning a long, at least 30-chapter Fratt story. I have the plot all written, it shows Frank and Matt's relationship evolving since their first meeting and shows a slightly different backstory to Matt. You guys think I should go for it?

Frank and Matt fight, a lot. It’s almost as if they don’t know how to interact otherwise, like they don’t know how not to. They fight over the stupid and the important shit. They talk bullshit and they talk business, morality and purpose, strategy and choices. They talk honestly, always, even when trying to get a rise out of each other but it always ends up in a fucking fight. Murdock isn’t as quick to talk shit about Frank’s MO as he used to be; life seems to have mellowed out his fury. He seems to understand his actions more than he ever could before, and yet, they fucking fight.

And he knows he changed his views on the kid, too. Before, Red was a pain in the ass, yeah? All of his redemption, morality, second chances and bullshit talk. At first, for the Punisher, that was naivete talking, young written in bold letters across the Devil’s forehead. Now, after everything, he respects the kid more than he ever did a lot of the marines he fought side by side with and he understands that there’s nothing naïve on the kid’s views - it’s all pure, vital goodness that oozes out of that bleeding heart of his. 

And yet. 

Frank shouldn’t be surprised - kid doesn’t know how to do anything without grabbing it with both hands as if the world was ready to tear it away from him. He fights. Fights when he’s in his pretty smiles and bought-off-the-rack suits, hiding behind round glasses and calculated words; fights when the Devil takes over with dangerous smirks and lightning-fast movements and only a flimsy piece of cloth in his eyes, protecting him from the word. As if he’s taunting it to throw anything it wants at him, unafraid of it all. He’s a creature of light as much as he is a creature of dark and so, they fight. 

He actually thought they got on better like this: screaming at each other, beating each other senseless. Fighting, scratching and tearing into each other with words and bloody knuckles as if that’s just how things are supposed to be. He even believed that for a long time. But things have a way to turn out differently from what Frank expects when it comes to Red. Even knowing that well, Frank expects that’s all there is to it. Frank prods and pokes, Red talks, they scream, they throw themselves at each other: they fight. Again and again and again. And they search for the other again the next day. 

But the strings holding things attached in that frail equilibrium are dictated by gravity - and all it takes is a nudge and a tilt, for everything to change.

They had talked a lot of strategy for the operation, had been planning for some weeks too. Frank knows that isn’t a guarantee everything will go as they set out to, but it gives him the confidence to have back-up plan A, B,C and D for every little occurrence or obstacle that could get on their way. The Crows were getting some notability between gangs, some were ex-military, some came from dismantled mob families that the Devil and the Punisher had taken down the last few months. They do what scum always does, in Castle’s opinion: scatter off running like little cockroaches and regroup somewhere else. When Murdock is ever gonna learn that is a mystery. 

Although he knows the man is aware, his idealistic nature just usually gets in the way of Frank’s plans. 

Thing is, they don’t count with the heavy artillery Matt smells through the walls when they are getting closer. The trap is already set and it’s too late to go back by then, so they both, very unwisely, decide to keep going. Military grade, Red says, as they infiltrated through the window on the top floor, thanks to Frank’s grappling hooks and the Devil’s expertise in his little parkour adventures and gymnastics moves (he won’t let Frank call it ballet). 

Red has a second to scream out his name as they weave through the mobsters before the gunshot swallows all sound. The bullet rips right next to the one he got in Kandahar, his right shoulder burns. He vaguely hopes it fragmented so he won’t have to deal with the hassle of a broken collarbone or shoulder blade. He’s lucky he’s left-handed, taking only a second to take his ka-bar in hand and slash it through the bastard’s throat. Grunting as he moves forward, fueled by adrenaline and pain.

Red did say once he only ever looked more dangerous when hurt and bleeding. He remembered snickering something about not knowing shit about what looks like what. And it had ended in banter, and then Red slapping him like a first grader with a cheeky smirk.

His brain takes him in weird places, when he’s this hurt.

He vaguely registers the heat of a steadily growing stain of blood in his side, from his shoulder to his mid-torso. Red is dealing with disarming two guys and kicking another one who refuses to stay down. The gunfire must be hell in his lil’ delicate ears, and he scoffs as he puts a bullet in another one’s lung, pushing him out of the way when he stays looking shell-shocked to the end of his M9 pistol.

Frank is a man on a mission. And he trusted his men (man, in this case) to finish the job. But damn if his attention doesn’t flicker for a second when Red yelps and groans in pain, a goddamn knife stuck to his thigh. He doesn’t waste a second punching the guy’s face and twisting his arm behind his back, relying on boxing and his good leg now. 

“You good, Red?” he roars through the gunfire, hiding against a wall only to show up and shoot three down when they come through the other side of the room. He registers vaguely he doesn’t need to scream for his freaky bat ears to hear him but he’s getting dizzier by the hour, body slumping as a hand presses against the bullet wound. Things just get cloudier and cloudier, even while he fights his way through the heavily armed idiots coming their way. He functions solely on stubbornness and fury by then, blood running hot through his veins. It doesn’t help that Red is so fancy with his fights that he gets distracted another bullet comes from behind him.

His right side explodes in heat, his body not registering the pain. He thinks he mutters the Devil’s name before he passes out from blood loss. 

“Frank, you goddamn moron, don’t you pass out now-” 

He smirks at his red-clad idiot and welcomes the dark.

Gravity was a topic he didn’t really pay attention to, during his school years. Those are distant years, too. Even if he had been interested in physics and all those fancy equations, Frank wonders if he’d even remember. He had been an angry kid, lashing out at the world, looking for big bullies and playing the bigger one. He turned into an angry man, half-contained fury and blood thirst disguised under human skin. 

Gravity pulled bodies to the ground. When they started dropping, no strength or life left in hollow bones and weightless muscles, Frank waited for the  _ thud.  _ Meat finding earth, blood splattering, bullet holes and stab wounds. Bullets play with gravity the way a cirque acrobat plays with a tight rope. It walks a thin, straight line to a target and it doesn’t stop until it hits.

Gravity pulled his babies to the ground, bullet holes and bleeding wounds all over. Pulled his wife and pulled him too. Sometimes, it felt as if it kept pushing him down - down, down and  _ down  _ against the floor. Taunting him to get up, a facsimile of death, of respite when he isn’t going to get one. Flaunting hope of seeing his babies, his loves, in front of him and taking it away when his eyes open. And they always eventually do.

When he feels awareness creeping through his muscles and bones, mind connecting itself with body again, he isn’t surprised. What a bullet to the brain didn’t do, one to the shoulder won’t either. 

What’s unusual, however, isn’t the pain and the heavy weight all over. Nor the stitches and carefully cleaned and dressed wounds. Figures altar boy would take care of a piece of shit like Frank. 

No, what’s unusual is the soft, fluffy feeling against his hand that he can’t quite place. It isn’t a blanket, that’s for sure. It keeps pushing slightly against his hand, almost shyly. Like a kitten, maybe. But it doesn’t make sense, as far as Frank can figure out, he’s in his safe house, and he doesn’t have kittens or cats or puppies. Anyway, the... fluffy unidentified fur is longer and thinner. Like hair, which also doesn’t make sense.

Or it didn’t, until he hears a small tired sniffle. 

He opens his eyes then, blinking a little at the soft sunlight entering through the tattered curtains. The soft hair pushes against his hand slightly again and he slowly turns his eyes down, uncertain of what he expects to find. He certainly isn’t expecting what he gets, although that’s not even a surprise to Castle by this point.

Murdock is sitting in the ground, bloodied wet rags and medical supplies all around him. A bloody water bowl with fragmented pieces of a bullet on the nightstand. His hands are carefully folded on his lap, trembling fingers stained with Frank’s blood, probably. He donned out his suit, wearing an oversized white tee with navy boxers that shouldn’t look good against that pale, pale skin. His head is resting by Frank’s right hand, hazel milky eyes red-rimmed and staring vacantly at the opposite wall. He stitched his stab wound too, it seems, although it looks like a shit job.

His body is slumped by Frank’s hip, sporadically, his neck will twitch and he’ll push his head against his hand once more. The thin hair strands are soft against his fingers, but he keeps them steady for a few seconds more, appreciating the sight with curious eyes. He figures he should find this awkward, but somehow, it doesn’t. It feels like a stolen moment of peace Frank didn’t reckon he’d ever get after his family was taken away from him. And still, his body feels weightless, gravitating towards the other one the same way he seems to gravitate back.

Matt was lost in his head enough to startle when Frank slowly, tentatively starts weaving his worn, work-roughened fingers through auburn hair. The patches of sunlight makes strands glow ginger in some places, honey brown in others and a deep, blood red in the shadows. And he may be a bit of a brute, but goddamn it if it isn’t one of the most beautiful things he’s ever saw. Matty is, he reckons, all over. Beautiful. Not handsome or good looking, but dangerously, sweetly beautiful. 

How didn’t he ever realize that seems like a horrible oversight of an usually observant person like Castle. Maybe he did but got lost in their ramblings and trading of useless punches.

He wonders now if he could do it, seeing him like this, eyes locking somewhere to the left of Frank’s cheek as he keeps slumped by his side, red-rimmed eyes betraying the exhaustion of a night spent taking care of the man now caressing his hair as if it was the most natural thing to do. He wonders how he could ever draw a drop of blood from this ethereal man, milky doe eyes so gentle in their tiredness. 

His lips are tinted cherry from biting them worriedly. He can’t take his eyes away. 

“Y-...” Matt’s voice is rough, a whisper really and he clears his throat before he attempts to speak again. “You bled so much, Frank... I almost raided a hospital” Frank can’t help a rough, deep chuckle that rumbles in his chest. Low and almost inaudible, his hands slowly taking one of those autumn colored strands of hair and pushing them behind rose tinted ears. Matthew is blushing slightly by then, but he doesn’t pull away from the touch for minutes to come. Frank is sure he’d purr if his biology allowed it, the way his eyes fall heavy and closed when he rubs his scalp. 

Things change after that.

Once he gets Matt acquainted with kindness and touch, he doesn’t know how to even attempt to go back to the fighting. They banter, of course, but all the repressed edges and anger seems to fade completely when they are together. Frank gets lost as soon as he meets those eyes. They aren’t ice blue like he had seen before in blind people, but hazel with discrete shades of green, a cloud covering the iris and melting it to milky undertones. The unresponsive pupils are slightly darker than the irises, still clouded over. 

Those pretty eyes have him hooked before he can even recognize it. And slowly, but surely, they are meeting outside of their vigilante roles.

Castle isn’t sure if it has anything to do with the moment they shared that morning. Matt’s bloodied hands from saving his life, Frank’s rough fingers trying to give and to find solace amid the chaos. It’s unusual, he tells himself, that they start feeling comfortable around each other. Enough that the closeness makes him want to flee - to remember Murdock so soft, pliant and sweet under a kind touch. Is he desperate? Is that the reason he searches something like that from a broken, ugly thing like Frank? He had looked so impossibly relieved, though, eyes shiny with a glimmer of unshed tears, when he first saw Frank stand up after the wound. 

He remembers how he scolded him for his distraction and then, how he scolded him again for trying to go back to work with a gaping wound in his shoulder. Matt spoke like a soldier sometimes - hardened by experience, skill, by carefully misdirected intelligence. Always analyzing. 

Sometimes, however, Matt spoke like a kid. Full of ideas and wonder, a pure, bleeding heart ready to give and to keep giving. Wondering if he is good, if he can do better and how. It’s an interesting mixture and so purely Murdock. He realizes that day he is somewhat enamored by the doe-eyed lawyer. 

And after that realization, it’s almost impossible to stop himself.

The day he gets back on his own two feet and ready to go back to work, Red is there. He keeps frowning and studying the almost completely closed wounds with his senses, nose twitching, head tilting. It’s endearing, really. Not only how worried he is by something Frank’s been through not once, or twice, but a good number of times. He doesn’t stop and consider his move before he makes it, dropping his hand on Matt’s auburn hair and ruffling it. 

It’s interesting and almost magical, how sweetly Red can react from a simple touch. His face shows surprise, but his entire disposition brightens, his body lighting up. His usually tense shoulders sag pliantly, his hands lose their anxious clenching and unclenching. His whole body seems to gravitate involuntarily towards Castle’s warmth for a second or two. 

For how much Matty had been taking care of him for the last few days, it seems almost selfish to enjoy giving this so much. It feels like taking something he shouldn’t, this closeness. But Red makes his pleasure so obvious, relishing under the simple rubbing of his scalp and messing of his ginger strands - Frank can’t stop himself. He gives off a sound that was probably supposed to sound like a huff of annoyance or a grunt, but it comes off sweet and low, almost a sigh of content.

He realizes it then, it had been in front of him the whole time. How deeply Murdock is starved of touch. It’s sad, in a way. How someone that strives to do good, to be good; to help at all times and all ways he can find is so estranged from kindness. Reacting like a wild animal does at the offer of food, not knowing whether to accept and ask for more, or to growl and snap at the unveiled, unknown threat.

Frank wonders who the hell in Matt’s life is stupid enough not to grasp at any excuse to hold on to Matty’s soft skin and his floppy, soft fluffy fucking hair and does eyes  _ and freckles on perfect sun-kissed skin.  _ And then Matt fucking blushes when he realizes how long they have been getting closer and closer, stammers some nonsense about time and how Frank should apply the ointment, it’s good for the wound, and Frank’s so fucked.

He’s besotted, he’s done. 

It keeps happening. Of course it does.

They banter, and keep disagreeing about the things they disagreed before. They even spar sometimes. But they never draw a drop of blood from each other again. Like a new, unspoken rule. Despite the repeating of some patterns, there’s a closeness and a reliability on each other there had never been before. They even comfort each other, on their own quiet, weird ways. 

If Frank is upset or lost in the echoes of his long dead family, Matt will nudge his shoulder at his and keep their bodies slotted close, sharing warmth. He will take him out for coffee or sugary shit if he thinks he needs a distraction. It’s amazing, how he’ll always notice even when Frank himself has yet to be made aware of his own mood. He’s almost convinced Red’s freaky ears can hear his thoughts somehow, but he always refutes that theory.

He keeps saying it though. Teasing Red is one of the good things of life, Frank has come to understand.

When Matt is quieter, Frank waits. He’s been slowly but surely learning how to ask for what he wants. He doesn’t touch him unless Matt asks to, because for Castle it would feel too much like taking advantage. He waits for the request or for a permission. It’s a long time before he really learns how to, and that wanting something he doesn’t actually needs isn’t wrong. They develop their own, secret language then. Almost instinctively, Frank knows how to answer to Matt’s body language. It’s clear, after all, he doesn’t know how to put his needs and wants to words.

He learns that, when he wants his hair played with, Matty will sag his body and make himself smaller, reaching slowly for the warmth and comfort of Frank’s bigger hands. And for a long time, that’s all he asks for.

And then, one day, without thinking about it Frank touches his cheek, wiping away a bread crumb. Not much time later, Red learns how to ask for that touch. Only when he is particularly vulnerable or hurt, will he do it, and so it always feels special. Matt will tilt his head towards Frank’s hands and closes his eyes like a little fucking angel. And Frank, smitten as he is, can’t never deny him. Would never want to deny him. 

Matt thrives with kindness and touch. He is less angry, during their nights out in their jobs by choice. His head more centered. During the day, he’d smile more, joke more, frown less. Frank slowly gets over the fear of taking advantage, realizing it was something they could share and enjoy together and that wasn’t harmful in any way.

So Matt gets bolder, and starts touching Frank too. Hands so lovely and soft, rubbing his scalp, holding his face when Frank’s mindset is too chaotic, too deep in the blood and mud of a war he never knew how to leave behind. He asks more, unafraid, knowing he will be granted the affection he craves. He gives more too, mindful of Frank’s moods, always willing to comfort and care for. And wishing deep down for the same.

So Castle does it. He can’t deny him, as he said.

When Matt wants a hand rubbing his shoulder, arm, nape or back, he turns one side to him, trying to meet Frank’s eyes with his milky, unseeing ones. When he wants a hand enveloping his waist, warming him up, he’d nudge Frank’s arm with his side until he put it around him.

It’s beautiful when he asks for a hug.

It happens a month into this new aspect of their relationship. Matt had been particularly tired. Too much work piling up at the firm, too much hassle in court. A neighbor who wouldn’t stop listening to Sia’s Elastic Heart in a loop, other neighbor wearing a new laundry soap that made him sneeze every time he opened it. He had a few sore ribs from a fight that almost didn’t end very well and a headache. Frank had been at Matty’s loft by the oven, putting a simple mac and cheese inside so he’d eat, at least. 

He had learned early that, when tired and overwhelmed, Matt was not to be trusted with his own health and care.

“This will be ready soon, why don’t you take a shower, Red? You look like shit” Matt had chuckled and nodded slowly, but instead of walking towards the bathroom, he came towards Frank. Noticing his body language change, Frank put the dish towel in the counter and rested his hips against it, waiting for Matt to come closer.

He does. Nudges himself step by step until his forehead thumps lightly on the soldier’s chest and stops. He gives off a tiny, mewled out grunt in annoyance, squirming and wiggling until Frank chuckled and put his arms around him. Enveloping him tight against him, feeling him sag against his torso, rubbing his face on his chest like a kitten, sighing contentedly. Frank smiles and rests his cheek on the shorter one’s head. 

After that, things slowly change once more. The affection and comfort turns sweeter, the stolen touches turn special and more often. The day Frank finally drops a kiss to Matty’s temple, he melts. He fucking melts in his arms like putty, humming lightly in pleasure. He does the same then, face flushing as he stands a bit on his toes to reach Frank’s cheek and kiss him slowly and sweetly, bursting warmth. And the usually tense man feels all the excess energy and anxiety leave his terse muscles.

Huh. Maybe Matt wasn’t the only one starved of a kind touch.

Matt maybe realizes that too, since he starts touching him ever more often. He’d massage his sore neck, hold his hand out of the blue, caress his face and give his excuses of “I’m seeing you, Frank. Obviously” like the little shit he was. They don’t try to understand where they stand while that happens, what exactly had changed. But Frank already feels he’d do anything for the man. 

It doesn’t take long after that for Matt to ask for a kiss.

He’s smiling all the way through, as he stalks closer to Frank as he comes through the front door of Matt’s apartment. He waits like asking for permission, and then closes their distance a bit more.

His hands come to his chest, caressing all the way to his biceps and shoulders. Always asking for it, as if he needed by this point. Frank would give him the world, should he ask. He’d give him his flesh, bone and blood for the man. And it seems even more special to know Matty would never ask that of him, would never ask of him to get hurt or feel pain. He doesn’t see the soldier in his bones, the rogue killer in his bloody hands. He feels Frank, understands him and accepts all that he doesn’t understand.

Frank loves him.

He tilts his head down, directing his eyes to Matt. His rough fingers find the man’s chin, tilting his head back to meet his angle. They stand together for seconds, warmed by the fading sunlight, by the closeness to each other’s body. He brings his other hand to Matt’s waist, pulling him closer and waiting. Waiting for that last nudge from gravity to push them together.

Matt slowly opens his cherry tinted lips in invitation, eyes soft where they lie, so beautiful in their idleness. He tilts his head closer, as if incapable of resisting their shared space. He whispers a little wisp of a voice:

“Frank?” It feels like an answer, instead of a question. An answer to what had changed, that day under the sunlight. His hands to his soft hair, Matt’s fingers weaving into his heart. 

He kisses him. Matt’s lips are as warmed by the sun as every inch of his skin. Loving and sweet. 

Frank considers the warmth as they feel the pull towards each other. Seals a thought he’d been considering since the day Matthew came to him with a smile and a cup of coffee, asking if he wanted company. Frank had said yes. 

He says it again. 


End file.
